How Deciphera Pharma Is Capitalizing Big on ASCO

Health and Healthcare

Published: June 5, 2018 10:05 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 10:46 pm

Deciphera Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: DCPH) saw its shares take a breather in Tuesday’s premarket after the firm announced a secondary offering. But after the opening bell, they added to the massive gain seen on Monday in regards to an incredible update the company gave at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting over the weekend. Now seems like as good a time as any to capitalize on the ASCO gains and raise some funds.

The company plans to offer 3.75 million shares, with an overallotment option for an additional 562,500 shares. JPMorgan and Piper Jaffray will be the joint book-running managers for the offering. No pricing details have been mentioned yet.

In terms of the update from ASCO, Deciphera presented data from its ongoing Phase 1 clinical trial of DCC-2618, the company’s broad-spectrum KIT and PDGFRα inhibitor, in patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). Overall results were positive.

The combined 24% overall response rate and 80% three-month disease control rate in second- and third-line patients receiving DCC-2618 at doses of per day exceeds previously published results of registrational trials for the currently approved therapies for second line (sunitinib) and third line (regorafenib), which have reported overall response rates of 7.0% and 4.5%, respectively, and levels of disease control of 60% and 53%, respectively.

Michael D. Taylor, Ph.D., president and CEO of Deciphera, commented:

The preliminary data presented today on DCC-2618’s activity in second and third line GIST patients is very encouraging and supports the planned initiation later this year of our Phase 3 trial, INTRIGUE, in second line GIST patients. The mutational profiling data across second, third and fourth line GIST patients observed in the Phase 1 study also demonstrates the need for the broadest spectrum of KIT inhibition in all GIST patients who previously received imatinib.

Excluding Tuesday’s move, Deciphera had outperformed the broad markets, with the stock up about 93% in the past six months.

Shares of Deciphera were about more than 5% at $40.35 Tuesday morning, with a consensus analyst price target of $40.60 and a 52-week trading range of $15.15 to $38.43.

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